Usually someone wants to do yard work. A natural assumption to make considering the state of my yard (very wild) is that I need to hire work done on it, and that I am just waiting with my gate open hoping to lure someone with a lawn mower and some hedge trimmers to come in and make it look like a golf course. If you know me at all, you know that is NOT how I roll.
I know I'm going to trigger all sorts of feelings on this subject. I hope to generate some discussion around this. I really do want to know your thoughts. This morning as I was trying to get through a pile of work, I heard a faint tapping at my front door. (No this is not Edgar Allan Poe). I peeked out my front window, and thought OH OH, I forgot to close the gate. When ever I forget to close my gate, I always get visitors that I'm not expecting. Usually someone wants to do yard work. A natural assumption to make considering the state of my yard (very wild) is that I need to hire work done on it, and that I am just waiting with my gate open hoping to lure someone with a lawn mower and some hedge trimmers to come in and make it look like a golf course. If you know me at all, you know that is NOT how I roll. I completely flummoxed the "Mole Man" who used to live in our neighborhood, when he showed up with his traps one day, and offered to do away with those pesky creatures that were making little soil mounds in one corner of my yard (a small corner, I might add). "I couldn't have that on my conscious", was my reply and he went away scratching his head. So today when I peeked out and saw a couple of well dressed women with large purses bulging with literature, and a bible in hand, I knew what I was in for. I have to admit, I was hoping they would be Mormon missionaries, because they always ask you if there is anything they can do for you, and I had two sinks full of dirty dishes, having just taken Sunday off. But no one offered to do any work, so I guess they were of some other faith. ;) The smaller of the two women started speaking right away and I have to admit that I wasn't actually paying that much attention to what she was saying because, they had caught me in the middle of about three things I had going on at once. But what was distracting me most, was that she had a heart on her left cheek. I know it was really a freckle, but it was shaped like a rather large Valentine heart. How could I be less than hospitable to the woman who wore her heart on her face, right out there in the open. So I listened and we conversed. I just listened, as attentively as I could, considering that I was really hungry and my blood sugar was doing the limbo. When they would pause and ask me a question, I would answer. I would answer ONLY the question they asked, thoughtfully and honestly. But I didn't try to get into any discussion about my philosophies. What is the point really? Why quibble? I'm not going to convince them that their Bible is anything but God's word from his own lips, and that they have a handle on the one and only pure untarnished meaning--and frankly that would be none of my business. I'm not here to challenge someone's beliefs. I am here to embody love--(and sometimes I even remember to do that ;-D ). So I focused instead on what they were saying that I could agree with. And I stayed present in my heart. The question which began our conversation was "Will war and suffering ever end?" After they left, I got a bit of an insight into that. Leaving a gate open is such a magical thing to do. What might you attract or invite in when you leave yourself open. If you stay present in your heart, it will only be something of benefit. It seems that my focus might be too much on the defensive/protective aspects of my experience. Maybe instead I need to be encouraging interaction between contrasting perspectives. Not to convince anyone that they are wrong, but to hold a loving space for the possibility of two completely opposite perspectives to coexist along side one another. So perhaps that is the real answer to the question "Will war and suffering ever end?".
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